Russian intel failure: Obama’s intelligence community run by amateurs, hacks

In this photograph taken of Putin while a member of the Russian KGB he displays a striking resemblance to the actor Daniel Craig, the latest actor to play super-spy James Bond.

According to the Congressional Research Center, the House of Representatives intelligence appropriations for the Obama administration are a considerable part of the federal budget. In the CRC report, the analysts claimed that close to $80-billion was allocated for both the national and military intelligence agencies and programs. CRC estimates that the intelligence budget doubled since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and has doubled since the end of the Cold War with the old Soviet Union. Unfortunately, American taxpayers are not getting a good bang for the buck in fighting radical Islam.

Meanwhile, the events that have occurred in the Middle East are forcing federal lawmakers to probe another example of a serious intelligence lapse: Moscow’s military action in Syria obviously took President Barack Obama and his White House by surprise. “This means that either this country’s 17 spy agencies were taken by surprise with Russia’s dramatic military offensive to aid Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad or the Obama White House, the Pentagon, and the upper-echelon intelligence officials — Susan Rice and Valeria Jarrett — neglected to read the intelligence assessments or failed to act upon them.

Some of the U.S. intelligence community’s top analysts reportedly informed the Pentagon watchdog that their reports have been systematically edited to backup President Barack Obama’s — and his national security team’s — assertions that depict the war on the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as being more successful than it actually is, according to news reports from outlets such as The Hill. Up to 50 intelligence officers and analysts have come forward.

This revelation is being touted as the very first time that so many intelligence analysts have complained to the Pentagon’s “top cop,” Inspector General Jon Rymer, about the politicizing of the intelligence gathering and analysis function. In July, a couple of analysts filed a complaint with Rymer’s office, after months of internal complaints were allegedly ignored.

Although what’s now officially called the U.S. intelligence community acknowledged it must increase its intelligence gathering and analysis on Russia in the wake of President Vladimir Putin’s adventurism in the Crimea and then in Ukraine, it appears easier said than done. Despite the need for Russian intel operations, the U.S. spies continued to waste billions of dollars on inadequate counter-terrorism in the Middle East and the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.

“President Obama’s priorities are domestic hence his stressing the importance of the National Security Agency’s spy program that targeted people within the United States. Obama couldn’t care less if Russia decided to annex the entire Middle East. He might give it ‘lip service’ but he wouldn’t lose sleep over it,” said former counter-terrorism unit member Stanley Charlton Lansing. “Obama is more interested in disarming American gun-owners than he is in disarming jihadists,” Lansing added.

Although Obama’s spy agencies supposedly kept Putin’s military assets and personnel in Syria under surveillance, all the White House did was criticize Putin and the Russian military and to insist the leaders in Moscow to explain what is happening in the Middle East and Africa.

“That’s what the U.S. media is reporting, but news sources overseas tell a different story. They are reporting that Obama and his so-called national security team — Susan “Benghazi’ Rice included — were caught ‘flat-footed’ and off-guard by the Putin operation that was as fast as it was deadly,” said police anti-terrorism advisor Joan Rivera-Coleman.

In all fairness, many experts this writer contacted said that it would be mere conjecture about how President Obama and his administration could do a better job with better intelligence on the Syrian civil war and the actions of that Arab country’s longtime ally Russia, according to Mike Baker, a GOP consultant. “The last thing Obama wants so close to the 2016 election cycle, is to watch Americans fighting in a new Middle East conflict, especially one that has the Russians and the Americans sitting on opposite ends of a negotiations table,” Baker noted.

Jim-Kouri

Jim Kouri, CPP, is founder and CEO of Kouri Associates, a homeland security, public safety and political consulting firm. He's formerly Fifth Vice-President, now a Board Member of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, a columnist, and a contributor to the nationally syndicated talk-radio program, the Chuck Wilder Show..
He's former chief of police at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed "Crack City" by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s. In addition, he served as director of public safety at St. Peter's University and director of security for several major organizations. He's also served on the National Drug Task Force and trained police and security officers throughout the country.